Best Practices for Legal Education

Many, if not most, law schools conduct orientation for incoming first year students.  Faculty may be significantly involved.  Sometimes we might ask ourselves, in the hurry of early August, “Why are we doing this?!”  And, “How come we didn’t schedule time last April to talk about changing orientation?”  When faculties examine their orientation programs, we may start by asking what the purposes of orientation are.  Welcoming students to the institution, or into the legal profession?  Infusing them with a sense of higher purpose?  Instilling professionalism?  Or even just laying the logistical groundwork for the semester?

The risks of formalized orientation are obvious – overwhelming students with too much information, boring them to the point of disengagement, frustrating them with further delay before the long-awaited start to their law school studies.   Even inspirational speakers (judges, famous graduates) or motivational ceremonies (e.g., pinning) may need to be retooled, when these traditions start to feel stale.

What really needs to be accomplished during orientation?  Should faculty play a role, and if so, what should it be?  Or is orientation best left to the administration?

Recently, to enable my own participation in first-year orientation, my elementary-age daughter was sent off to a week-long, overnight language camp.  From the moment she entered the grounds, the camp counselors spoke to her in Swedish – the target language.  Having no prior experience with the language, my 10-year-old felt the full impact of immersion-style language learning.  Other than a brief conversation inside the cabin about rules, communications from and among staff – her teachers – took place in a language that was entirely new to her.

Should orientation of law students be designed to smooth the transition into law school, with the idea that comfortable students will be better positioned to learn?  Or is it possibly more effective to immerse the students in our professional language and culture – as legal scholars, teachers, and lawyers – from the very beginning?  Would recognizing and employing the power of “disorientation” actually better serve this purpose?

Some schools have revamped their initiation of new students in innovative ways (last I heard, Washburn has gone so far as to ban the use of the “O” word!).  What about schools that haven’t yet reached such a turning point – are there key roles that faculty can and should play in being a part of what happens during the first few days new students arrive on campus?

The Wall Street Journal Law Blog recently posted on the change to merit pay raises at law firms, a move away from simple billable hours based raises.

“It’s becoming increasingly clear that lockstep pay, in which associate salaries automatically rise each year, is becoming a thing of the past at many firms.

Today there is news out of Beantown that some leading corporate firms are telling their young lawyers that their billable output and overall performance are increasingly relevant come pay time.

Nixon Peabody and WilmerHale have abandoned lockstep pay, and Choate Hall and Edwards Angell are considering similar moves.”

The question has to be asked: what does this mean for law schools as they try to prepare students for a world where skills will be required even for young attorneys? 

If the firms look for skill in order to prove merit then students will increasingly need to stay one step ahead of the competition. The move could place more pressure on law schools to produce students with enough skills to earn these raises, and students may choose law schools that will provide proper training.

An interesting article was sent to me from Professor Pam Armstrong, a lawyering professor at Albany Law School.  It cites findings that grades in law school are a more accurate predictor of career success than the eliteness of the school. The full text of the article is posted at the ABA Journal’s website. The research was also picked up by the Wall Street Journal’s Law Blog.

Professors Richard Sander (University of California, Los Angeles), and Jane Yakowitz (visiting professor at Brooklyn Law School) concluded that the old addage telling students to go to the best law school is not necessarily accurate. ”Law school grades are the important predictor of a lawyer’s career success—in fact they are ‘decisively more important’ than the eliteness of the school attended.”

They point out that the research should affect law school “trade-ups”. “Since the dominant conventional wisdom says that law school prestige is all‐important, and since students who ‘trade‐up’ in school prestige generally take a hit to their school performance, we think prospective students are getting the wrong message.”

The study consisted of analyzing data from 40 public law schools, and the professors found that students still tend to choose the most elite school. But the American Bar Foundation’s After the JD study of lawyers who entered the bar in 2000, indicated “that the salary boost for achieving high grades more than makes up for the salary depreciation associated with attending a lower‐ranked school. The study also found that lawyers who left law school with the lowest grades felt the least secure about their jobs.”

It appears that the “best law school” theory was accurate at one time, but has since lost its importance. ”Two other studies of lawyers practicing in Chicago in the mid-1970s and mid-1990s found that law school eliteness was associated with higher incomes in the 1970s, but that had changed in the 1990s, when class rank more accurately predicted earning power.”

Furthermore, ”while law students tend to come from upper-middle and upper class backgrounds, social status now appears to not have a role in shaping grads’ careers.”

As for why grades are so important ”Sander told the Wall Street Journal he doesn’t know why grades are so important, but he was willing to speculate. ‘It could have to do with psychological factors, a level of confidence you gain from doing well that serves you well not only in school but afterward.’”

In a new research paper recently published on SSRN, Douglas Rush, from St. Louis University reports that law schools may not be teaching students to “think like lawyers”.  The paper entitled “If You Think Law Schools Teach Students to ‘Think Like a Lawyer’…Think Again!” finds that ”there has been little or no empirical evidence to test whether attending law school improves students’ ability to ‘think like a lawyer.’ This paper reports two studies conducted at ABA accredited law schools which examined whether taking more of the ‘think like a lawyer’ bar courses improved students’ ability to pass state bar examinations.”

The studies found that there is no significant evidence that “think like a lawyer” course help in passing the Bar exam. “The author concludes that law schools do not teach students to ‘think like a lawyer.’ Instead, students with pre-existing ‘think like a lawyer’ skills self-select to attend law schools. Law schools also pre-select law students with high ‘think like a lawyer’ skills using index scores which combine LSAT scores and UGPA.”

Click here to read the article.

A Resolution of the ABA House of Delegates requires an examination of any form of law school ranking.  Pursuant to the Resolution, ABA President Carolyn Lamm assigned the task of examining law school ranking to the Section of Legal Education and Admission to the Bar.  The Special Committee has prepared a comprehensive annotated bibliography on the ranking of law schools.  The analysis shows that there are many forms of law school rankings, but that the U.S. News rankings still dominate the discourse and have become increasingly important for law schools to attract students.  Additionally, the criterion used by U.S. News has impacted the management and design of law school education.

The Committee noted three of the greatest concerns they have about the U.S. News rankings.  First, “the current methodology tends to increase the cost of legal education for students.”  The rankings award schools that spend more money per student. Therefore, a low cost school will be punished despite the quality of education.

Second, “the methodology tends to discourage the award of financial aid based upon need.”   Financial aid is now used to attract students with high GPA’s in order to satisfy that component of the rankings.  The result is that students with the greatest financial need are required to borrow heavily to attend law school.

Third, “the current methodology tends to reduce incentives to enhance the diversity of the legal profession.”  Racial diversity is ranked among law schools in a separate report and not included in the official rankings.  Therefore, diversity is forsaken in order to focus on GPA and LSAT scores.  And because the cost of law school continues to increase, other forms of diversity, like family financial background, are further ignored.

The remainder of the bibliography is devoted to providing an overview of the various criticisms to the rankings systems and alternative ranking systems that have been discussed.  However, none of these are about to supplant the U.S. News rankings anytime soon.  The result is that those rankings have a profound impact on the operation of law schools.

In a previous post, I discussed the proposed changes to ABA standards with regard to academic freedom and faculty security of position.  Several faculty members privately e-mailed me to provide context and correction to my explanation of the proposed revisions to ABA standards and the underlying assertion that tenure is not “mandated” by the current standards. And I am very grateful that they did. This is a very serious area of concern and controversy.

Respected law professors who have long followed accreditation efforts informed me that the assertion about current ABA standards – that they do not require tenure – is a recently created argument.    Standard  405 (b) requires law schools to have an established policy for tenure (why would a school have to have a policy if there was not tenure granted) and references the 1940 aaup policy, which clearly states that tenure is the appointment that is necessary.  In fact, prior to the adoption of 405(c) or (d) or (e), the ABA annual questionnaires only listed 2 categories for full-time faculty – “tenure” and “tenure track,” never expecting anything else.

Another professor,  Professor Richard K. Neumann of Hofstra,  reported “It’s a recently created myth that tenure is not required by ABA Standard 405(b).   When I started doing site inspections in 1994, everyone involved believed that  the standards required tenure  systems and clearly stated policies controlling those systems.  People would have been flabbergasted then at the idea that the ABA would permit a school to have a policy that read:  ‘This school does not award tenure to anybody.’”

Neumann also informed me that in 1999, the Standards Review Committee recommended abolishing 405′s requirement of a system of tenure.  He tells me that “SRC framed its recommendation that way, and the Council debated it that way.  I attended the Council meeting as an observer when this was debated.  On the Council, Herma Hill Kay (Berkeley) was the leading advocate for retaining 405′s requirement of a system of tenure to protect academic freedom.  Bob Walsh (Wake Forest) led the anti-tenure faction, arguing that for every instance of tenure protecting academic freedom, there were ten more of tenure protecting sloth.  This was a good-natured discussion, but the views were deeply felt and expressed.  Everybody in the room called the factions ‘the friends of Herma’ and ‘the friends of Bob.’  (When the vote was taken, Herma’s friends won.)  The entire discussion was about whether schools should be required to have systems of tenure.  Everybody in the room believed that 405(b) requires schools to do so.  That’s what they were arguing about. “

Neumann continued “The first year I was on SRC (2003-2004), a committee member made a motion to strike 405(b) from the standards on the ground that a school should not be required to have a system of tenure.  The committee discussed it entirely in the belief that 405(b) does require every law school to have a system of tenure.  SRC decided again to recommend to the Council that the Standards no longer require a school to have system of tenure.  I was not at the Council meeting that rejected that recommendation, but the Consultant and Deputy Consultant at the time reported back to us on SRC that the Council rejected the recommendation in a matter of minutes on the ground that they had decided this issue only a few years before.  Again, everybody involved understood 405(b) to require that a law school have a system of tenure.”

Neumann provides a second reason:  internal interpretation of the Standards. ”If 405(b) does not require a system of tenure, then 405(c) and 405(d) would never have been adopted.  If 405(b) does not require tenure, then clinicians and legal writing teachers are the most protected people in legal education and doctrinal teachers the most vulnerable.  If 405(b) does not require tenure, a school could hire every doctrinal teacher as an at-will employee, but it would be required to give some job security to clinicians and legal writing teachers.  (Could the drafters — most of them doctrinal teachers — conceivably have intended that?)

Moreover, another Standard — 206(c) — requires that deans have tenure.  A school can comply with that Standard only by having a system providing for tenure.  That would be the system of tenure that 405(b) has always been understood to require.

Some elementary concepts of statutory interpretation are being ignored when 405(b) is claimed not to require tenure.  Statutes are to be interpreted on the premise that the legislature is not loopy.  A statute is to be interpreted as a whole and not by pulling wording out of context.   Statutes are to be interpreted so that their parts are internally consistent.”

Professor Neumann’s historical and statutory analysis is sound and supported. Thus, it seems that the current proposals incorporate revisionist history. Revisionist history substitutes poorly for real debate about appropriate standards for accrediting law schools.  It not only creates mistrust and suspicion about alternative agendas, but it thwarts collaborative and creative efforts to improve legal education and its institutions.

In addition to the proposed revisions regarding academic freedom, the ABA Standards Review Committee also posted proposed revisions regarding Faculty Responsibilities – Standards 401-404.  [To see draft click on: http://www.abanet.org/legaled/committees/comstandards.html

 The proposed revisions focus appropriately on student-centered learning and the need to make good teaching a central focus of law school accreditation. The proposed standards make no changes to 401 and continue to link the faculty’s qualifications and experience level to the “stated mission of the law school” as well as to the programmatic requirements contained in other standards on Objectives and Curriculum of law school programs (301 & 302). Nor do the proposed revisions tinker with requiring the faculty to “possess a high degree of competence, as demonstrated by its education, experience in teaching or practice, teaching effectiveness and scholarly research and writing.”

The heart of the new revisions lies in its “new emphasis on mission and self-direction “ (Commentary to 404).  For example, much earlier in the revision process the faculty-student ratio was discarded as an old-fashioned input measure.  Thus, in these proposals, Standard 402, which concerns the “Size of the Faculty”,  is changed from a focus on “fulltime faculty” to “a sufficient number of faculty” to meet the ABA standards and  the school’s educational goals and to “advance” the individual school's  mission.  The commentary notes that “this Standard is rather oddly limited to 'full-time faculty'.  The real concern is that there are enough teachers of all rank and terms of employment who can meet the[sic.] these goals.”

The proposed revisions also more fully elaborate on the role of full time faculty. First, in 403, they articulate what has been the accreditation practice – that full time faculty should teach “ substantially all of the first one-third of each student’s coursework and more than half of the upperclass credit hours or student contact hours. “  Then in 404, the provisions start by inserting the word Teaching (hallelulah!) as a major responsibility and also includes responsibility for “assessment of student learning.”  The 404 revisions also require schools to make clear faculty expectations regarding “Course and curricular development, including the preparation of students for emerging areas of practice and other professional innovations.”

Finally, they emphasize – by moving from an interpretation into the text –  an obligation for law schools to provide “orientation, guidance, monitoring, and evaluation”   to “all persons providing instruction to students” –  not just new faculty.

 All in all, the revisions for this section do focus on outcomes, assessment and student-centered learning – which, conceptually,  is all good!  They also, in conjunction with the proposed revisions to academic freedom standards (contained in my last post) place more power and authority directly in the hands of each law school’s administration which can now  define an individual law school’s  mission in a manner that may well dilute the role, power and security of the full time faculty.   That’s my first blush analysis  – what do others think?

The proposed revisions to ”Security of Position, Academic Freedom, and Attract and Retain Faculty” dated July 15, 2010, was posted on the web site of the Standards Review Committee on July 20, only three days in advance of the Committee’s meeting this weekend at which the SRC is slated  to discuss the issues it raises.   see http://www.abanet.org/legaled/committees/comstandards.html (scroll down to July 24-25 meeting).  This “Draft” proposes the elimination of the longstanding provisions in Standard 405 addressing tenure and other forms of security of position for law faculty.

Yesterday (July 22nd), CLEA President Bob Kuehn sent a letter to the Standards Review Committee identifying several “troubling” issues raised by this posting.  First, it  is “posted so late that interested persons and organizations cannot provide comments prior to the Committee beginning its deliberations on those issues.”  Second, Bob found it also troubling that, “although it appears to represent the viewpoint of only a single author  (we note that the draft, on page 7, is written in the first-person singular and states that it is not endorsed by the subcommittee), this “discussion” document does not provide the Committee with any alternate points of view.”  Third,  “the author of this document misreads, and therefore misrepresents, the May, 2008 “Report of the Special Committee on Security of Position,” which reported to the Council on Legal Education…… Fourth, the draft makes no note of alternative viewpoints, even though many were expressed in anticipation of this draft.”  Bob Kuehn’s letter is posted on my CELT site. www.teachinglawstudents.com

What is important to note in reading the proposed draft is that although not mandated by the standards, tenure has been the historical means by which institutions of higher learning, including law schools, preserve academic freedom.   The proposed standards suggest a world in which a wide range of  employment relationships will exist between faculty and those who pay them and,  ultimately, either the preservation of tenure for an ever smaller, discrete, elite portion of a facultyor throwing out tenure altogether.  The issue is also being discussed on the Inside Higher Ed blog.

This is a time for careful analyis and brainstorming among those who care deeply about the future of legal education. I find it interesting that at a time when the world has become so very conscious of the devestating economic, environmental and health effects of market deregulation, the ABA is leading us down that path!

As mentioned in an earlier post, the next ABA Standards Review Committee meeting will be held in Chicago on July 24^th and 25^th at the Conrad Chicago in the Magnolia Ballroom, Salon A and B.  ( If you are interested in attending, contact Charlotte “Becky” Stretch at StretchC@staff.abanet.org.) Two areas have generated much comment:  the proposed outcome standards and the anticipated dilution of faculty status and security.  This post discusses the most recent comments on both these issues. 

The current draft of the proposed Student Learning Outcomes (found on front page of www.teachinglawstudents.com) has generated many comments over the course of the past year.  Professors Richard Neumann and Roy Stuckey have recently posted a comment which is well worth the read.   Neumann and Stuckey’s thorough letter provides a helpful description of how medical schools came to embrace the precise and helpful standards they use today as well as a comprehensive analysis of the “cost” and “assumptions” about money which may have caused the patchworked and messy draft now before the Standards Review Committee. 

With respect to proposed standard 303 (a) (3), Neumann and Stuckey assert that   “Every skills teacher we know who has seen this language has been startled by it” and reminds the Committee that the “only”  way students can acquire competence in “professional skills sufficient for effective, responsible and ethical participation in the legal profession” is through multiple supervised learning experiences.  Their letter also addresses the ambiguous reference to a “qualified assessor.” Finally, with respect to the current proposals for standard 304 ( individual law schools’  Assessment of Student Learning Outcomes), Neumann and Stuckey “believe that the current 304 language undermines the learning outcomes standards as a whole so thoroughly that adopting the entire package of standards might not be worth the effort.”

 Also on the agenda for the July meeting is the role and status of faculty – see ABA site http://www.abanet.org/legaled/committees/comstandards.html and scroll down to July 24-25 meeting.  The draft before the committee makes changes which move away from “full time faculty.”  The draft stops short of  examining section 405.  Thus although, it was anticipated that changes would be proposed to 405, nothing appears to have come out of the subcommittee. 

 Meanwhile, prestigious and longstanding members of the legal academy have come out on record to oppose attacks on academic freedom through dilution of Standard 405.  Most notably, University of Pennsylvania Law Professor  Robert Gorman wrote a powerful comment letter which has been endorsed by twelve (12) past presidents of the AALS as well as:

Matthew W. Finkin
Albert J. Harno & Edward W. Cleary Chair,
University of Illinois College of Law
Former General Counsel and Chair of the Committee on Academic Freedom
   and Tenure, American Association of University Professors

Julius G. Getman
Earl E. Sheffield Regents Chair,
University of Texas School of Law
Former President and General Counsel, American Association of       
   University Professors

Sanford H. Kadish
Alexander F. & May T. Morrison Professor Emeritus,
University of California, Berkeley, School of Law
Former President of the American Association of University Professors,
   Former President of the Association of American Law Schools

Hans A. Linde
Senior Judge, Oregon Supreme Court
Distinguished Scholar-in-Residence, Willamette University College of       
   Law

Robert M. O'Neil
University Professor Emeritus and Director of the Thomas Jefferson
   Center for the Protection of Free Expression,
University of Virginia
Former President of the University of Wisconsin, Former President of                  
   the University of Virginia
General Counsel, American Association of University Professors

David M. Rabban
Jamail Regents Chair in Law & University Distinguished Teaching  
    Professor,
University of Texas School of Law
Chair of the Committee on Academic Freedom and Tenure, American
   Association of University Professors
Former General Counsel, American Association of University Professors

William W. Van Alstyne
Lee Professor of Law,
College of William & Mary, Marshall-Wythe School of Law
William & Thomas Perkins Professor of Law Emeritus, Duke University
Former President, American Association of University Professors

What happens next is anyone’s guess. We’ll keep you posted as July 24th nears….

By: Sarah Ricks and Evelyn Tenenbaum

Many law teachers are eager to implement the ideas in Best Practices for Legal Education (2007) and in the Carnegie Foundation’s Educating Lawyers (2007). But traditional casebooks are not focused on helping students to develop practice skills and professional identities – as the Carnegie Report recommends. Traditional casebooks are not designed to make it easy for the professor to “engage the students in active learning,” “give regular and prompt feedback,” “employ multiple methods of instruction,” or “use context-based instruction”  – all recommendations of Best Practices.

A new casebook series from Carolina Academic Press is designed to make it easy for professors to do all of the above. The series was designed by Michael Hunter Schwartz and is co-edited by Gerry Hess – the two directors of the Institute for Law Teaching and Learning. Every book in the series attempts to actively engage students and help them envision their professional roles.

Sarah Ricks (Rutgers-Camden) and Evelyn Tenenbaum (Albany) have together written one of the upper level casebooks in the series, Current Issues in Constitutional Litigation: Roles of the Courts, Attorneys, and Administrators (forthcoming late 2010). The book integrates teaching doctrine and skills. The approach is rooted in Sarah’s eleven years of law practice – including 7 litigating civil rights appeals for Philadelphia – and Evelyn’s 18 years litigating civil rights cases for the State of New York.

The focus is on practical materials to teach the constitutional and statutory doctrines necessary to litigate the most common current constitutional cases, those arising under the 4th, 8th, and 14th Amendments to the Constitution. Throughout, there are exercises to help students simulate their future professional roles.

The law practice simulations allow students to creatively explore how attorneys shape and apply doctrine. Some involve doctrines that have split the federal circuits. Simulations include interoffice debates among attorneys deciding whether to appeal or seek certiorari; a jury charge conference; meetings with clients to decide the next steps in the litigation; a settlement conference before a mediator; testimony before a legislative body; and appellate oral arguments.

Unlike most constitutional law casebooks, this text includes not only Supreme Court decisions but differing circuit court applications of doctrine. But it is not limited to cases. The text illustrates doctrinal development by including model jury instructions, appellate oral arguments, appellate briefs, and expert reports.

To help students grasp the difficult choices faced by those on the front lines of constitutional decision making, the text includes factual background about the work of prison guards, police, and social workers. To remind students of the human faces behind the doctrines, the text includes statements by people affected by these doctrines, without the intermediary of a lawyer.

For example, the Eighth Amendment materials include excerpts from a Supreme Court oral argument, testimony by a correctional officer who assaulted a prisoner, jury instructions, a link to a video statement by a survivor of prison rape, and an interview with the lawyer who argued two of the Supreme Court cases. There are law practice simulations concerning medical treatment of inmates, prison gang violence, and housing of transgendered inmates.

The catalogue listing for the book is: Current Issues in Constitutional Litigation (Carolina Academic Press, forthcoming November 2010)

http://www.cap-press.com/isbn/9781594604270

Books in the Context and Practice series make it easier for professors to use multiple teaching methods by providing banks of multiple-choice questions and essays and by providing exercises and simulations to help students reflect on their future professional roles.

Recent posts discuss the proposed new Learning Outcomes implications for clinical offerings. There is concern about the move from the original language requiring “substantial instruction in professional skills” to requiring that “every student” complete “at least…one appropriately supervised learning experience” mandated in the proposed new Standard 303.

While others are debating the merits of this change, I’d like to raise a related issue discussed by some members of the AALS Pro Bono and Public Service Section.

The new standard preserves in 303(b) the “shall provide substantial opportunities” language for “live-client clinics or other real-life practice experiences” and “participation in pro bono legal services or law-related public service activities.” In the pro bono community, adding “shall” was a long fought battle won. However, we have questions about how “substantial opportunities” is being interpreted and applied.

On its face, the language is vague. Does it mean enough opportunities to meet student demand? Is “substantial” enough slots to engage a majority of the student body? Annually, or over the course of their three years?

We are interested in learning from those of you who have had an ABA site visit since the “shall offer substantial opportunities for…live-client or other real-life practice experiences…student participation in pro bono…” was adopted in the current Standard 302.

The Report Format Memo given to site teams during ABA accreditation visits: Pro Bono Opportunities [S 302(b)(2); I 302-10] says only:

“Describe how the law school encourages its students to participate in pro bono activities and provides substantial opportunities for them to do so.”

In other words, little guidance is given to what “substantial opportunities” means in practice. While your anecdotal stories about the application of the language will be illuminating to the pro bono community, it may also shed some light on the current debate about the proposed new language as it applies to clinics and field placements as well.

Thanks in advance for sharing – on the blog, or privately to karen@lash.us or OGILVY@law.cua.edu — your experience with an ABA site visit, or any other experience that would help us understand how “substantial opportunities” is being interpreted.

 The ABA Committee examining the review of accreditation standards next meets in Chicago July 24-25 to continue its development of outcome measures standards and to begin its consideration of amending or deleting the security of position provisions in Standard 405(c).  In this post, I will focus on the current debate around development of outcomes measures.    In  a post later this week, another blogger or I will provide an update on security of position issues. 

The current subcommittee draft is dated May 5, 2010 and you can find it on my CELT webpage at www.teachinglawstudents.com   (or if you want to navigate the unwieldy ABA page www.abanet.org/legaled/committees/comstandards.html )  Previous BP posts have discussed these standards — most recently noting the AALS Executive Committee’s strong  letter outlining three principles for the Standards Review Committee to consider.

 CLEA president Bob Kuehn sent me the latest CLEA submission commenting  on outcome measures and revisions to ABA Accreditation Standards 302 & 303 .  I will also post to by CELT site.  (It should appear on the ABA site before too long).  CLEA finds that the current proposed revisions (the May 5, 2010 version)  ”diminishes legal education” by significantly “weakening the professional skills requirement”   and “reduces outcome assessment to an empty promise.”  CLEA concludes that,  if the draft standards are adopted,  law school education will ”shift back toward more passive learning in large classes” and that law graduates will become ”less ready for the challenges of our changing profession.”  Do you find CLEA’s position persuasive?

The NYSBA Taskforce on the Future of the Legal Profession will conduct a thorough examination of the how lawyers are trained. The Taskforce’s goal is to produce a report that will influence fundamental changes in law firm billing structure, improvements in legal education and training, providing better work-life balance and harnessing new technologies.    With regards to legal education, the taskforce will explore “how new lawyers can be trained by law schools, law firms and legal employers to ensure a ready and competent workforce.”  Academicians on the Taskforce include Dean Rick Matasar, Fordham Law’s Dean of Experiential Program, Pace Law School’s Professor Gary Munneke, chair of a subcommittee on alternative billing and law firm structure, and Albany Law’s Mary Lynch, who is chairing the portion on Training New Lawyers – see description below.

Training and Promoting New Lawyers

Each year thousands of law students graduate and enter the job market insufficiently prepared to practice law. Law firms are expected to give on-the-job training to first and second year associates.  Recent trends indicate that more and more clients are refusing to pay for the work of new associates.

Moreover, many associates at large law firms report that they are unhappy with their positions. They want better training, more experience and expanded mentoring opportunities. More than 50 percent of associates leave their law firms before reaching their fifth year, depriving law firms of their talent just when they are becoming profitable. One study estimated that firms lose about $400,000 for every associate who leaves.

A Taskforce subcommittee will explore better ways to train new lawyers, so that they are well prepared to meet the demands of the modern client. The subcommittee will also examine different methods to promote and compensate lawyers so as to improve the lifestyle of associates while ensuring that clients feel confident that the lawyers working on their matters are fully trained.

The Taskforce welcomes advice and input from all law faculty on what reports and resources to review and what recommendations we should consider.  Please post your comments here.  

See links below for more information about the launching of the taskforce.

NYSBA

Law.com

The Eighth International Clinical Legal Education Conference will be held at Northumbria University Law School, in Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, July 7-9, 2010. The Conference will explore the role of clinical legal education in modern law schools.
Professor Paul Maharg (formerly of the University of Strathclyde and now on Northumbria Law School faculty), author of TRANSFORMING LEGAL EDUCATION: LEARNING AND TEACHING THE LAW IN THE EARLY TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY (2007) www.transforming.org.uk, will deliver the first keynote, “Sensus Communis: Experiential Learning and the Law School Curriculum.”
There will four streams of sessions running throughout the conferences focusing on issues such as assessment of clinical programs, educating ethical lawyers, assessing student learning, legal clinics and professional skills development, the importance of student practice rules (right of audience), and structuring law school clinics and fieldwork experiences. Abstracts of all of the sessions will be posted on the conference website http://www.northumbria.ac.uk/sd/academic/law/entunit/conferences/ijcleconf_2010/.
Additional plenary sessions include Professors Beryl Blaustone (CUNY Law School). Catherine Klein (Catholic Law School) and Leah Worthham (Catholic Law School) will present the second keynote, “Autonomy, Mastery & Purpose: Structuring Clinical Courses to Enhance These Critical Educational Goals,” and Professor Peter Joy (Washington University in St. Louis) will deliver the final keynote, “Developing Professional Identiy for Lawyers.” Professor David McQuoid-Mason (University of Natal, South Africa) will conduct a special interactive presentation, “The ‘Chicago Seven Trial’ Reloaded: Using the Chicago Seven, Nelson Mandela and Saddam Hussein Trials to Teach about the Role of Lawyers, Judges and Accessed Persons in the Criminal Justice System.”
The keynotes and various sessions promise to explore the many dimensions of the role of clinical legal education in modern law schools, such as educating students about (in)justice, enhancing legal knowledge, developing legal skills, and providing a community service. The conference will focus on the impact that clinical legal education has on the professional development of future lawyers and on the legal systems they help to shape.